Toys for children run the gamut from very expensive and very complicated computer games and video games to very simple toys composed of plastic or wooden building blocks that can be snapped, joined or press-fitted together to form or create a number of different types of objects from giant robots, spaceships, construction vehicles, ships, buildings and well-known structures. Children's toys are designed to be used both indoors and outdoors and in various types of environments. One specialized area of children's toys are toys used in water games, sports, and activities, and such toys range from water guns, flotation devices, motorized boats, etc. There are also children's toys designed for indoor use in a bathtub. Such toys are often used as an inducement to get children to take bath's on a regular basis; and such toys are especially helpful in coaxing or cajoling young boys to not only get in the bathtub but to occupy the young boys so that they can be properly washed by the supervising adult. Such toys must have a number of common attributes: they must be resilient and not easily breakable with parts that fragment and splinter; they must be fun and fully engage the young child; and they must be easy to clean and store. The prior art discloses a number of toys for use by small children.
For example, the Dideriksen patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,210) discloses a toy wash that is constructed from members of a toy building set that includes brush assemblies, flexible connector members and upright beams and horizontal carrier beams.
The Shiraishi patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,435) discloses a trackway toy that includes at least one powered toy for movement along and on sections of track and action stations that may be in the form of an elevator and a crane in the vicinity of the track way.
The Rehkemper et al. patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,789) discloses a toy track assembly with a mechanism to launch toy vehicles on the track so that a mid-air collision of the vehicles occurs includes a spiral track section, a horizontal section, and an inverted track section for creating the mid-air collision.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,657 discloses an activity toy for use with toys by vehicles and more particularly pertains to such a toy stimulating features of a real life car wash.
Nonetheless, despite the ingenuity of the above devices, there remains a need for a portable, lightweight toy that can be submerged in a bathtub or other body of water for the enjoyment of children.